


A Knowing Desperation

by LazyBaker



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Renaissance, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Renaissance Inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 02:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17194661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyBaker/pseuds/LazyBaker
Summary: Will doesn’t want just sex, but if he must, he will let the count devour him.





	A Knowing Desperation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peacefrog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefrog/gifts).



> Inspired by [this post](http://granpappy-winchester.tumblr.com/post/181474925746/byk23-granpappy-winchester) and a conversation with peacefrog who filled me in on some of the gayer details involving Italy during the Renaissance. 
> 
> This is set in an imaginary city where Hannibal's a count and Will's the son of a poor farmer who's gonna get himself a sugar daddy.

Will stinks of desperation. He knows it.

He hasn’t eaten in three days. His father had passed out a day ago and hasn’t woken up. There are old debts waiting to be paid with money that doesn’t exist. There’s farm work that will leave him miserable, withered up, and a drunkard in half the time it took his father to become just that. 

There’s no future. There’s no home to return to. Will had turned sixteen hardly a week ago and his only option is his desperation. He cannot linger on the shame burning inside him because of it - he doesn’t want to depend on someone else, but he cannot live a repeat of his father’s and his grandfather’sand every Graham man’s life - he must move passed the ugliness of what he’s about to do to overcome. 

So he does. 

Will goes to the bathhouse. He washes himself the best he can until there isn’t a speck of dirt on him. His clothes are worn out, but he washes them. He’ll have to make do.

 

-

 

He sneaks three sprays of an older courtesan’s perfume on the insides of his wrists and then his neck. 

She catches him by the wrist and must spot the desperation in his eyes. She offers him a bed in her brothel. Will doesn’t want to be fucked by a line of men every day who will spend their last coin on him. He wants a man with status who will make Will’s name mean something. 

Will tells her no. She doesn’t understand. She offers oils for his hair and tells Will, with a smile meant for a child with dreams outside his standing, she hopes she never sees him again.

 

-

 

For a month, Will has snuck out to the city and gone to this tavern. He’d picked out his mark within moments. A handsome older man who visits twice a week. Long grey and blond hair tied back. Clothes dyed in expensive reds and blues, always pristine. 

He never chooses the same boy. Sometimes he has sex with them. Sometimes he simply orders food and eats with the boy. Sometimes he will have the boy on his lap and kiss him gently. Will doesn’t care about gentle. 

Count Hannibal Lecter. He’s wealthy. Has an entire villa with his family’s name on it. Has a whole household of artists and poets living with him who he supports. He’s genuine, not some charlatan who cleans himself up in a public bathhouse in stolen clothes to appear as something he’s not. 

There’s a real future with Count Hannibal Lecter and Will’s not going to let him get away.

 

-

 

Will knows how he looks. Has felt men older than his father leer at him since he was young. He’s never let any of them touch him, though he’s been curious. Has watched a few of the neighborhood boys go off with these men to back alleyways. Their hands brutal, while their mouths were sweet and their cocks determined. 

Will doesn’t want just sex, but if he must, he will let the count devour him if it means he will never have another blister on his hand or again wake up at night to find his father glaring at him and knowing down to his bones that one day he may not wake up at all.

 

-

 

The tavern’s busy. The lighting dim and the sounds of sex are all around him. The air is thick with sweat and the mustiness that comes from the bodies writhing behind doors and out in the open in the darker corners. 

There’s a boy around Will’s size who’s been bared to the stale air of the tavern, eyes clenched shut with a man huddled between his knees, young hands twisting, spasming in his hair. Distracted. 

His clothes have been left in a heap on the floor. They’re not expensive, but they’re not full of holes and the fabric hasn’t been worn thin. Will snatches them up along with a roll of bread and ducks out to swap his clothes for them. No one notices Will at all. 

They’re big, but the tights fit well enough and the blue of the waistcoat is awfully nice. 

Will eats and looks at his reflection in the window, the torchlight above allowing him to see himself somewhat. He thinks, as far as charlatan’s go, he’s not that bad at this.

 

-

 

Will arrived later than he’d hoped for. 

Hannibal’s already chosen a boy named Randall. He’s older than Will. Not as pretty. Will watches Hannibal feed Randall a slice of some kind of yellow fruit with Randall pressed tight to his side. 

The sight of them makes his stomach churn. 

There’s no more waiting, no more nights to sneak out to the city. There’s only tonight. Will knows it. 

He swipes a knife from a table that’s as distracted as any other, tucking it close to his palm.

 

-

 

Will waits for Randall to be sent up to Hannibal’s room upstairs, ahead of Hannibal. 

Randall goes to the outhouse first. 

It’s easy and Will should be ashamed, should be disgusted, but - it’s just _simple_. 

The knife slides into Randall’s back. The sounds he makes lying, hands scrabbling at the wet dirt, the fear spilling out of him sticks to the insides of Will’s skull. 

He doesn’t allow the thoughts of _how interesting those noises are_ or _how good it had felt to get rid of this boy who’d taken my place_ to linger.

 

-

 

“Now, who might you be?” Hannibal says. 

Will sits on the end of the bed, hands wringing together. 

The knife he had thrown into the alley. 

He’d washed his hands with the water pump outside.

Randall’s last breaths echo in his ears, but he smiles. He has to push passed it to overcome. 

So he does. 

“Will.” He says. 

Hannibal shuts the door. The room is left in cold moonlight. Hannibal lights the hearth. His eyes appear black and Will is struck with an unfamiliar sensation of his outsides being peeled back for his insides to be studied. 

“Will.” Hannibal says his name sweetly, curls it around his tongue, pleased. “And what of Randall?” 

“He’s beneath you.” 

“Is that so?” 

“Yes.” Will twists a curl around his finger, pulls and lets it go to bounce back into place, nervous and calm and keeping at bay thoughts of Randall cold and still in the mud outside. 

He’s anxious. 

Hannibal comes closer, carrying the scent of sweet fruit and status. Will is overpowered with how much he dislikes him, the wealth and opulence he wears as easily as his own skin. It’s a stink that makes his lip curl, but he restrains himself, barely. Hannibal’s gaze is a heavy one, endless, but Will knows he can bear it. It's a necessity. He’ll have to. 

Hannibal looks him up and down. Will meets his eyes. For anyone else, Will would have avoided this sort of intimacy. He’s never wanted to know more than he has to about any one person and eyes are always too telling. 

But Hannibal’s are dark and so amused and knowing and Will thinks - startled - Hannibal sees too much. 

The ill-fitting waistcoat and shirt with sleeves too long. The dirty boots with heels that have been repaired over and over and over. The calloused hands that have known only the harshness of daily labor and the cold. 

Hannibal kneels in front of him. He’s broad shouldered and Will’s legs part unwittingly before he snaps them closed again. 

Slowly, _gently_ , Hannibal touches the side of Will’s neck. Will flinches, but doesn’t move away. Hannibal shows him his hand. There’s a smear of something black and red all at once. 

“You smell of life.” Hannibal says. Sucks the blood from one finger, eyes closing in a look Will has only ever seen on men during sex. 

He holds the other up for Will. 

 _He knows,_ Will thinks. Wide eyed. Trembling. Will's father's hands around his throat. Will's empty belly. Soil that will no longer grow anything. A wild wish for something better. A dead boy. Will Graham the charlatan. 

Hannibal knows. 

Hesitant, Will licks at Hannibal’s finger. The taste of blood is familiar. He’s tasted his own for years. But this - this is darker, sharper. It floods Will’s senses and makes him gasp. Thighs closing tight, rubbing together. The heel of his palm digs into the ache between his legs. 

He hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes. They flutter open. Hannibal’s hand is on his cheek. Thumb rubbing just under his eye. He’s closer. A lock of hair has fallen loose. _Handsome_. His fingers wet and tacky on his skin. His breath a warm reminder of what Will must do. 

“What a sublime creature you are.” Hannibal says, voice as gentle as his touch. 

Will shakes. There’s awe inside of Hannibal and Hannibal is offering it to Will, palms open. Will grabs hold of it and wraps it around his own neck. 

“Keep me.” Will tells him. 

Hannibal’s smile crawls, paints his lips into sharp corners that hide treacherous things in the dark. Ancient. Selfish. Genuine. 

“I think I must.” Hannibal says. 

The fire flares, the room washed in bright gold, allowing Will to see his reflection.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://granpappy-winchester.tumblr.com) and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/cannibear)


End file.
